UKH

Help!
Please help!

I've only ever used PCs. Daughter has a macbook. It has effectively ground to a halt.

Basically she's overfilled it, mostly with photos. A 500Gb HD is showing under 25Gb free and *everything* takes an age. Furthermore, she's managed to confuse it whilst trying to go from iPhoto to Photos and most of her content is no longer visible.

Naturally, all this includes her A-level coursework.

I have some holiday, so I spent today googling - and have learned many things, including the basics of using the f*cking thing. I have deduced it's running Yosemite, as it has a fine picture of the captain as wallpaper.

I also have a very nice, 2TB, pristine HD now installed. I thought I would just move all the files onto the HD, wipe them from the laptop HD and everything would be sweet.

However, Apple appear hellbent on not allowing me to find the real, underlying files. Their "packages" appear hermetically welded shut. Further googling suggests this is a widespread frustration.

What I'd like to do is get all the photo files onto the backup drive, clean them off the laptop HD and then let the mother software (Photo I guess) reinstall them. I'd be very confident doing this on a PC. It's a 'mare on mac.

Anyone willing to help with some step-by-step interactive e-mail guidance? Happy to get you one of these, or equivalent as reward for success:
http://www.needlesports.com/606/products/wild-country-helium-friend---2014-...

Thanks!

In reply to JJL:

Was anything backed up onto ICloud?? The mac may have been set to do this by default - my Ipad was and following a dunking in the river, which killed it, as soon as I got another ipad lcloud restored all my pictures, files etc., without me doing anything! Maybe using her login on another mac may help too?

In reply to Dave Perry:

Not sure. Good idea re. trying another machine.

Currently trying to use time machine to back it up pending more radical surgery!

In reply to JJL:

Underneath MacOS is BSD Unix. Open a terminal shell, and get into the guts of the thing, old skool. No shitty obfuscation by the GUI.

ps. As much as I hate the Ghost of Steve Jobs, Macs are relatively sane and conventional in terms of file handling.

Images should be filed normally, and should be accessible with Finder, as should your new HDD. Just move a whole bunch of shit to the HDD with finder, which should free up enough space to allow it to operate normally.

Then think about backups...

In reply to captain paranoia:

Ok. Tell me what keys to press

In reply to JJL:

Have you found Finder yet? It's Mac's File Explorer.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201732

The only Mac I own is a Macintosh SE, with a 20MB HDD...

In reply to captain paranoia:

Yup. Finder is great EXCEPT that

When I look at all files I can sort by size (another puzzle solved) and see big ones. I can also move those big ones to an external drive. What I'm not clear on is how to then delete them form *only* the laptop HD as finder seems to be a smorgasbord of all the files from all attached devices.

If I look at the finder recods for just the laptop, the photos and movies are locked into packages that only open through the associated programmes... which aren't playing ball.

In reply to JJL:
The days of Apple having anything like a GUI are long gone....

What I would do:
Open Photos.
Click on the "Albums" tab at the top of the window
Click on the File menu and select "Export Originals" or "Export Photos"
Work through the options this will throw up - when you press "Export" it will thro up a standard file save dialogue - navigate to your new drive and go.

There is likely a more reasonable option like putting your photo library on the external drive as an alias and then moving everything over...

This also has some useful info -
http://www.howtogeek.com/214569/how-to-move-your-apple-photos-library-to-an...

A higher priority might be to find her coursework (probably in ~/herusername/Documents, or if she is a bit messy ~/herusername/Desktop (the latter being an excellent way to slow a machine down) and move that to the external drive as a backup

-----
before I get flamed - it would be ~/Desktop an ~/Documents of course.

In reply to JJL:

A mere 9 hours of backup remaining.

It seems to me that an approach to data architecture that is intended ot prevent users from buggering it up is also a massive obstacle to recovery when users have in fact found a way to bugger it up through a different route.

In reply to JJL:


Use the 'devices' view to see the physical view, rather than the logical view.

Windows does the same logical/physical view crap. I hate it, because I'm used to organising my file structure myself...

In reply to pneame:

That's a bit technical for me. But I will try!

In the morning. I also have a 1TB drive, so plan now is

Let 2TB backup finish as it seems to be chuntering along
Disconnect it. If possible view it on another Mac to check it's full.
Then use 1TB HD to see if I can do targeted exports.
Gain confidence and try a restore of some sort
Upgrade the programs to latest versions
Allow them to re-import.

I feel like a monkey bashing a piano.

What could possibly go wrong?

In reply to JJL:


Completely agree. The "you don't need to worry your pretty little head about it" approach of iOS and increasingly of desktop OS is why I switched to Android, and am sticking with XP/7. I can sort out where I put my files, thanks...

In reply to JJL:

You are looking at the worst example of Apple's "GUI" IMHO
Go to Finder -> Preferences and turn OFF the All my Files option
Or - move down in the sidebar of a Finder window to something else - like "herusername" which will give a list of things in her personal directory (like Pictures, Desktop, Documents)

I'd also stick to the list view (the little horizontal bars) and open new windows to move stuff around. Anything else will be messy and a bit unpredictable. Again, IMHO

In reply to captain paranoia:



How do I get a devices view?

You need to describe the icons!

In reply to JJL:

No kidding- Invisible controls and zero documentation.
Oh yes, you can find that feature by just hovering your mouse over the right portion of the screen and a button will appear.... "it's such a clean interface" "it's so thin" blah blah

If you have another mac, you can always make her computer "just a hard drive" by starting it up with the T held down. You can then connect it to another machine by USB or Firewire. If the machines are different ages this may be challenging due to lack of plugs - "it's such an elegant design that there is only one plug that does everything. It's the best computer we have ever made" FFS. And I am/was a Mac fanboy!

This is quite good - http://macpaw.com/how-to/startup-disk-full-on-mac-os-x

In reply to captain paranoia:

Right. Going to let the backup finish, spit on my hands, and take a fresh grip in the morning.

Thanks all for your help.

Updates will be provided of the amateur self-surgery as it progresses!

In reply to JJL:

"finder seems to be a smorgasbord of all the files from all attached devices."
You probably need to make sure that the Finder is showing all the items you need to look at - open Finder Preferences, click Sidebar, and check the boxes for everything you need - drives, shared, etc..

Essentially Photos is a database (SQLite I believe), and Apple seem to discourage you from messing around inside it. You can find original photo files by searching (using Spotlight, the Mac search widget) for a folder called Masters. Have a look in there - there's probably a number of sub-folders with photos organised by year. Of course just moving these wouldn't move any edited photos so you might want to avoid messing around here. Have a look at this instead:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2999846/photography/how-to-move-an-apple-ph...

In reply to JJL:


Did you look at the Apple support link I posted?

I'd better bow out, because more experienced voices seem to be suggesting MacOS is closer in concept to iOS than I thought...

In reply to captain paranoia:


It really isn't. It has inherited some gestures and high-level UI* behaviours from iOS but you get used to those (and can turn a lot of them off if you don't like them). I was asked to fix something on the MiL's Windows 8 machine the other day and found it exasperating use, and I use Windows 7 every day at work. It really comes down to what you're used to.

As someone else said higher up, Finder does pretty much the same job as Windows Explorer. I actually find it easier to use because, for example, it tracks the mouse pointer and scrolls the pane you are hovering over, whereas Explorer requires you to click in the pane first which I find is a...pain (see what I did there?) However, I can well imagine that having "All My Files" turned on could be confusing. Nonetheless, it is the work of but seconds to turn it off, and once off its stays off.

If Photos uses SQLite then you ain't gonna be able to fix that with the standard file browser, no sirree, whether on a Mac or Windows.

I don't use iPhoto or Photos because I prefer to manage my .jpgs through Finder - I'm not keen on applications which put files in places where I have to go ferreting for them, and I prefer to keep full control over what happens to the images. MacOS doesn't stop me from doing that.

This will probably be heresy to some people, but I do use iTunes to manage MP3s. I know where it keeps the files if I need to get at them directly, but most of the time the iTunes UI is the easiest way for me keep them sorted, filed and indexed, to keep podcasts updated etc. Works for me. Might not work for other people. As I say, a lot of it is down to what you're used to.

* Whoever said the Macs don't have a GUI must have a pretty unique idea of what a GUI is. I'm sitting in front a Mac right now with nine windows open, including the native browser and two Excel spreadsheets. There are 28 icons on the desktop including one for each of the HDDs attached to this machine. That don't look like no CLI to me.

In reply to Martin W:


Yes: that was me. Or were you being a little arch...?


That's my preference, too, based, as you say, on 30 years' practice of creating my own filing structures.


That was my understanding, too. But it seems that some programs that run on MacOS do have that obfuscation policy built in to them. And these are the default 'apps', pre-installed. So the naive user is encouraged to rely on them to sort out the storage, rather than the manual approach we prefer.

ITunes has a feature that allows you to move its entire library to another location. I'm sure Photos has the same. Just that getting the OS to run with 'limited' free HDD space may be difficult.

In reply to Martin W:

That would be me
My screen sounds much like yours..... I was referring to Apple's tendency since Ive took over to minimize everything so that there almost isn't a user interface and you have to "know" that you have to hold the option key down (or the command key, or shift command, or option command to do some basic tasks. There often isn't the option to use the menu bar and it's associated pull-down menus with their command-key equivalents because you have managed to enter full-screen mode and you don't know how to get out of it (hint - esc sometimes works ).

The whole thing reminds me of earlier versions of windows without the windows approach of having the menu associated with the window. Very poor design. "But it's so thin, and it's so clean and minimalist"

Yes, I still much prefer a mac, but it's getting to be a close run thing. Most of the things I like come from Apple's huge and fabulous tome about user interface design in the 80s and I doubt that you would find a copy at Apple's headquarters these days "it's too thick - we can't read that!"

In reply to captain paranoia:

Apparently yes! But it's not in photos - you move it in the Finder (File Explorer equivalent). Then

wait for it

drum roll

---- you hold the option key down as you open photos.-----

There. that was obvious wasn't it.

Thanks to: http://www.macworld.com/article/2999846/photography/how-to-move-an-apple-ph...

In reply to pneame:

You can do the same for iTunes; hold option key down when opening, and it will ask you which library you want to use.

Everyone knows that, you silly...

In reply to captain paranoia:


Or you can change it in the iTunes preferences. That seems fairly obvious to me. Windows applications have Options, Mac ones have Preferences. Same thing, innit.

In reply to pneame:


Hint: mouse up to the top of the screen and the menu bar will appear - which also reveals the traffic light buttons at the upper left so that you can click the green one if you want to exit full screen mode. If you mouse down to the bottom of the screen, the Dock will appear so you can change to another application.

Of course Windows has never used obscure key combinations to do useful things. Oh, except maybe Alt-Tab - I used Windows for months (in the 3.1 days) before I found that out. (A good one is Ctrl-Alt-<arrow> to rotate the screen - or whatever your graphics card's designer decided would be the right key combination, so that when one of your colleagues decides to do it for a laugh you have to try to read Google results upside down it to find out how to undo it!)

On the MiL's Windows 8 machine I discovered that I couldn't drag icons around the desktop using the mouse, for some reason. I could have Googled a solution but I realised that, because her PC has a touch sensitive screen, I could do it with my finger - provided that I didn't mind sitting a little uncomfortably close to the screen. I still have no idea why using the mouse didn't work.

At the end of the day, though, this is an argument about detail features of each UI, and comparing each other's level of ignorance. I think that says more about us than it does about either OS.

In reply to JJL:

Not sure if this is useful as I haven't read the thread fully but regarding the 'packages' (by which I assume you mean things like the iPhoto/Photos Library, which are indeed called packages) you can open the folder structure by right-clicking (control-click if you don't have a right button) and selecting "Show Package Contents".

I'm a long time Mac user (although considering abandoning them as I'm getting less and less keen on their hardware and pricing and have long since migrated from iOS to Android) but I have to admit that Finder has some long-standing usability issues as seems to be getting worse rather than better with age.

In reply to Martin W:

Indeed.
And my brain is definitely not as adaptable as it is when I was considering buying my very own computer and first saw a 128k Mac - "now that's a computer" I thought.

And the two major consumer OSs (Windows / MacOS (as rumor has it it will soon be called) are steadily converging - Apple by obscuring aspects of it's user interface that used to be clear and useful and Windows by making it's interface more user friendly - I quite like Windows 7 - I also somewhat like Windows 10, but it seems to be acquiring some of the new Apple user interface - obscuring useful aspects.

I know that those who manage large groups of users prefer it if the users can't do anything not absolutely required for their job and I'm sure customer service at Apple and Microsoft feel much the same way!

In reply to JJL:




I see as I went into rant mode we didn't answer this question.
If you have a finder window open, on the left are the root things for file structures. So pick something on the left and sort by size in the pane on the right to find the big things.

You can also open the trash (usually on the right of the tool bar at the bottom of the screen) and open that. You can probably just go ahead and click on "empty" (top right). Once you have moved pictures or iTunes to use your external drive, you can just delete the original. Check that the external pictures directory is the same size as the original first - i.e. you have successfully moved it. With the directory selected, Finder -> file -> Get Info.
Once you are sure that you have moved things to the external drive and that you now have 2 copies, control click on the original and select delete. Then empty the trash